Call for Papers -- Toulouse Conference on Copntemporary English

[Laurence Horn]

At 6:32 PM -0800 11/28/06, James A. Landau wrote:
>I looked at the website 
>http://iclce.toulouse.free.fr and found it 
>interesting that the authors of the website keep 
>referring to "the linguistic phenomenon (or 
>phenomena) known as English".
>
>I'm probably reading a good deal into this that 
>isn't there, but to me the word "phenonemon" has 
>the connotation of "something extraordinary 
>impressive" rather than "something ordinary that 
>happens", e.g. the sportwriters' use of "phenom" 
>to describe an extraordinary athlete. Under the 
>influence of this connotation, I am hearing the 
>authors imply that the English language (and not 
>the socio-cultural-political influence of 
>English speakers) is somehow extraordinary among 
>languages.
>
>This strikes me as an unusual attitude from the 
>organizers of a conference to be held in France, 
>a country whose natives are, shall we say 
>well-known, for their chauvinistic pride in 
>their own tongue.  (It might be noted that the 
>English word "chauvinistic" comes from French).
>
>As far as I know, the only thing "extraordinary" 
>about English is its large supply of synonyms, 
>e.g. kingly, royal, regal.  Everything else that 
>seems idiosyncratic to English can be matched by 
>other languages:\
>- English spelling is horrible, but it actually 
>makes at least as much sense as French spelling
>- English is rare among Indo-European languages 
>in having a positional grammar, but so does 
>Farsi and if you're a fan of positional 
>grammars, learn Chinese
>- English has limericks, but Latin has epigrams
>- English has over 40 phonemes, but some Slavic languages have more
>- etc.
>
>Does anyone else feel the same bafflement that I do?

No, at least in my day job 
(semantics/pragmatics), a phenomenon is any 
pattern under investigation.  I refer to "the 
neg-raising phenomenon" (often enough to 
abbreviate it as NRP) as a theory-neutral way of 
designating the tendency to use higher negatives 
("I don't think it'll rain today") to convey 
lower-sentence negations ("I think it won't rain 
today").  Perhaps "phenomenal" is more likely to 
convey "extraordinary", but even then it has 
allows both senses (cf. AHD4: 1. Of, relating to, 
or constituting phenomena or a phenomenon. 2. 
Extraordinary; outstanding).

For "phenomenon" AHD4 gives

1. An occurrence, circumstance, or fact that is perceptible by the senses.
2. Inflected forms: pl. phe·nom·e·nons
a. An unusual, significant, or unaccountable fact or occurrence; a marvel.
b. A remarkable or outstanding person; a paragon.

and adds an interesting Usage Note:
_Phenomenon_ is the only singular form of this 
noun; _phenomena_ is the usual plural. 
_Phenomenons_ may also be used as the plural in 
nonscientific writing when the meaning is 
"extraordinary things, occurrences, or persons": 
_They were phenomenons in the history of music._

The OED's first sense for "phenomenon" seems to touch the right bases for me:

1. A thing which appears, or which is perceived 
or observed; a particular (kind of) fact, 
occurrence, or change as perceived through the 
senses or known intellectually; esp. a fact or 
occurrence, the cause or explanation of which is 
in question.

And that is, I assume, the sense that the 
conference organizers had in mind here.

LH

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org